Editorial Note
During December 1949 and January 1950, the United States Government, under the authority of the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949, negotiated bilateral military assistance agreements with other member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom. In the course of these negotiations, agreement was reached on certain nonsubstantive changes in the early American version of the bilateral agreements. One of these changes involved the deletion of a proposed article (designated Article VII in the early draft American agreement) setting forth an undertaking to cooperate in intergovernmental strategic export control programs. The participating countries favored deletion of the proposed Article VII as raising serious parliamentary issues and making more difficult the accomplishment of common objectives. The United States agreed to the deletion provided that there be a secret record of previous negotiations which gave adequate assurance of future cooperation by the participating governments in intergovernmental strategic trade control discussions. By the time of the signing of the seven bilateral military assistance agreements in Washington on January 27, 1950, all the participating governments had agreed to include the substance of such an undertaking in some form of secret minute or letter separate from the agreements themselves. For documentation on the negotiation of these bilateral agreements, see volume III, pages 1 ff. The circumstances of the deletion of the proposed Article VII are discussed in greater detail in telegram 574, February 7, to London, page 75.